Old School Tweet

A friend of mine has starting sending me old school tweets. That's what he calls sending a postcard. He got to thinking that a post card was the original short form communication. His postcards are works of art, literally. One side has original art work. The other has a short message. Unlike something like an e-mail, these are getting saved.

Another friend just had his father's quality fountain pen restored. He actually uses it to write letters. What amazed me is that there still are people out there who restore fountain pens. There must be enough demand.

Some people restore and use old typewriters. It's not just hipsters either.

As for myself I was one of the holdouts for rotary dial phones. There was a real classic in my office. The old Ma Bell phones a sound quality that newer phones just don't have. When I went to an Internet based service the old phone was no longer compatible. It was hard to let it go. To be honest, if I had a lot of calls to make, I'd use a push button phone. Dialing with a rotary got pretty tedious.

We've had long distance communication for some time. However, back in the old days everything was written down and physically carried from place to place. Imagine how tough that was when writing was cuneiform on clay tablets. The switch to light weight paper must have felt like a great leap forward.

Now communication is fast, inexpensive, and all too often trivial. In the old days if you were going to write a letter, you put some thought into it. That's why it's so nice to get original postcards from a friend.

-Sixbears